PUCKED Up

by Helena Hunting

  Twenty minutes later I’m clean, but still unshaven, in clothes that don’t smell like stale food, and my living room doesn’t look like a pizza bomb went off anymore. All my windows are open, and Vi’s made coffee.

  “Let’s sit on the balcony.”

  My dad and Skye humor me by telling me about their cruise. I know it’s not what they’re here for. They don’t make me talk about Sunny, which is good. After a while, Skye and Vi decide I need groceries since all I have in the fridge is soda and a jug of milk that’s gone off, so they leave me and my dad alone.

  “You and Alex gonna be able to manage yourselves on the ice when the season starts?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I sure hope so. He threatened to go to the manager and have me traded if I fucked Sunny over.”

  “Well, you didn’t, so there’s no reason for him to.”

  “I don’t know that he sees it the same way you do.”

  “Vi’s talked to him, and so have I.”

  “When did you do that? And why would you do that?”

  “This morning, after Vi came over, before we came here.” He laces his hands behind his head. “He’s going to be part of this family. And I did it because when my kids are unhappy, so is my wife, and none of that works for me.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “That I get that he’s worried about Sunny, but punching you out over it isn’t going to solve any problems, or make his relationship with Violet any easier. She’s struggling with this, although she won’t say it out loud. She already ate a damn sundae at our place and killed the bathroom.”

  “Wow. She must be worried then. Are things okay between the two of them?” Her messages over the last two days seemed upbeat, but she hasn’t mentioned Waters at all, or Sunny.

  “She talks to Skye more than me, but she’s stressed. She wants things to be okay with you and Alex. You know how she is.” He stares out at the skyline. “Sometimes I feel like I didn’t do the best job preparing you for relationships.”

  “Hockey was my girlfriend.”

  My dad laughs. “You and me both. I know Skye’s been good to you, but before that . . .”

  “We’re good, Dad. You did a great job. Look at this.” I motion to the skyline. From my balcony I can see the city and waterfront in the distance. It’s a great location—close to the buzz, but not in it. “My life is good.”

  “It’s nice to have someone to share it with, though, Miller.”

  “Maybe one day.” I swirl the dregs of my coffee. “Did you get my email about the fundraiser I wanna plan?”

  “I did. That kid really made an impression, huh?”

  “He’s an excellent player.”

  “I know. There was some camp footage a couple of days back. The interview was a smart move.”

  “Amber and Vi think so, and I guess if I wanna get moving on other projects, I need positive publicity.”

  My dad smiles and nods. “I’ve already started talking to some of the coaches for the minors to see if they have players who might want to be involved. Whatever you need, I’m here for you—and not just for business stuff, either.”

  “I know, Dad. It’s just easier for me to focus on the fundraiser right now.”

  He doesn’t push it, which is one of the great things about my dad. He’ll offer his help, but he won’t force it on me. We spend the next hour compiling a list of contacts and players we think will want to be involved in the exhibition game. If I want this to happen, I need to work fast so we can set it all up before training starts in a little over a month. It’ll be a lot of work, but I need something to fill my time, so I’m ready.

  ***

  Over the next week or so Violet stops by often to help me work on setting up the fundraiser. She maintains that things are okay with Alex, and I trust her to tell me if it’s not. Also, she’s a seriously sucky liar.

  “Soooo . . . I was talking to Daisy yesterday,” she says, faux casually on Wednesday.

  I don’t look away from my laptop screen. “Oh, yeah?” I don’t want to care about what’s going on with Sunny, but I do. I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m obsessive about visiting her social media feeds. The only thing she’s posted is an inspirational quote about karma. I haven’t called her back, and now that it’s been more than a week, I don’t even know what I’d say.

  “She says Sunny’s still moping.”

  “You said that’s normal for girls.”

  “She won’t even do spa days with Daisy when she has time off. And she’s not eating.”

  “None of that sounds good.” Since the family intervention, I’ve been going to the gym daily, and I’m back on my preseason diet. It means eating nothing I enjoy and being exhausted at the end of every day. But that makes it easier to sleep. It also means I’m completely unavailable to go out at night with Lance and the other guys. I’m not drinking, so the bars aren’t fun. I’ve also deleted all the honeys on my contact list. Regardless of whether Sunny and I get back together, I’m not going back to that.

  “It isn’t good for the people who have to live with her every day, but for you it is,” Vi explains. “The stages of relationship mourning are complex for women. We have phases. The moping part means she’s not happy about the choice she made. No spa days means she’s punishing herself for not talking things out—or whatever she needs to punish herself for. The not eating is something some girls do when they’re sad.”

  “You don’t not eat.” When Vi and Waters broke up earlier this year, she was all over the dairy treats, even though she can’t actually tolerate them.

  Vi flips her ponytail over her shoulder. “That’s where the complex part comes in. Not all girls stop eating. Some of us do the opposite. Like me. I eat ice cream because it tastes good and it makes me feel like crap on the inside. It gives me the moops, so it’s like punishment, and it ensures I won’t gain the post-breakup ten pounds because it all comes out the other end anyway.”

  “That’s seriously messed up, Vi.”

  “Maybe, but it serves its purpose.”

  “You were eating ice cream earlier this week.”

  “I was sympathy eating. Sometimes I pick fights with Alex so I have an excuse to eat dairy. Don’t you ever tell him that, or I’ll wax a spot on the top of your head so you look like you’re losing your hair.” She makes a circle over her skull.

  She’s always threatening to wax and/or shave parts of my body. She has yet to actually follow through, so I’m not worried. “Why would you pick a fight with him?”

  “Not like a real fight. Just, like, you know, leaving the dishes out of the dishwasher, or the cap off the toothpaste, or forgetting to buy new lube so we can’t have marathon sex—that kind of thing.”

  I give her the eye. “Sometimes it’s like you’ve been my sister my entire life, and then you have to go and overshare and ruin it all.”

  “Isn’t that what makes our relationship awesome? Can you imagine if you’d had a crush on me when our parents first got married? That would’ve been wicked messed, eh? We’d probably have our own reality TV show.”

  I don’t respond. I have nothing to say to this. Once I made a passing remark that she took the wrong way. She was hammered off of three light beers. She took it out of context and hasn’t ever let it go.

  “So if things don’t work out with Alex and me, and you and Sunny don’t get back together, and your career takes a dump, and we need to make some money because you spend all yours on booze and hookers, we should totally pitch that to a TV station. They’d pick it up in a hot herpes minute.”

  “Hookers are unnecessary. I’ve never had to pay for sex. If things don’t work out with Alex, I’ll set you up with Randy.”

  I grin as her face scrunches up. She sets her coffee on the table, lifts the laptop from her knees and makes her standard thrusting motion. “It would never work. I can’t control the air hump. It’s embarrassing enough on the occasions when I see him now.” She settles back in her chair cross-legged and repo
sitions her laptop. “In other, more exciting and important news—sit your ass down for this—”

  “I’m already sitting.”

  “Fuck you for ruining my intro.” She pretends to wind up her middle finger like a jack-in-the-box. “Apparently, Mr. My Balls Get Fondled By the World has been trying to contact Lily since your orgy weekend at the cottage.”

  “There was no orgy.”

  “That was a test. Good to know. But anyway, your ballsy friend tried to see Lily after the car wash fiasco. It didn’t work, but get this, she hasn’t gotten back together with that douchey guy, Benji. I met him, by the way. He’s a huge dickface. She could do way better. She’s actually nice.”

  Following a conversation with Violet is like trying to watch a professional ping-pong tournament. “To you maybe.”

  This is news about Randy trying to see Lily. He’s only mentioned her once since we’ve been back in Chicago. He’s been doing the gym with me the past few days, and he’s come back to my place instead of going to Lance’s, too. I thought it was a moral support thing, like he was trying to make it easier for me to cut the bar scene. Maybe his motivation is different than I assumed.

  “Have you called Sunny yet?”

  “No.” I go back to staring at the screen. She asks this every time I see her.

  “Why not? You’re obviously miserable without her, and she’s miserable without you.”

  “I don’t know. What am I supposed to say?”

  “Honestly, Miller . . .” She makes another one of her faces. “I can’t do it. I can’t call you Miller. It has to be Buck. I keep trying it on, but it’s like a cheap pair of underwear. It doesn’t fit right. I can’t get comfortable.”

  “No one said you had to call me Miller.”

  “Yeah, but Sunny calls you Miller and so does Randy. I feel bad that I can’t make it work for me.”

  “Don’t. Buck is a multipurpose nickname. If you want to feel bad about nicknames, stop calling me yeti.”

  “If you had dark hair, you’d look like a Sasquatch.”

  “I would not. I keep everything trimmed all nice-nice. Except my balls. Those are bare, like two squishy, smooth, flesh-colored plums.”

  She makes a sound like she’s coughing up a hairball. “Thanks, asshole. I liked plums up until now. If you stopped trimming for three weeks, you’d look like one of those wolf people. If we get that reality TV show going, we could dye it all to prove I’m right, but I think we should go purple so you look like a giant wine-dipped yeti.”

  I shake my head and fight a chuckle. As ridiculous as Vi’s tangents can be, they’re entertaining, and this one has lifted my crap mood marginally. Relationship limbo sucks. Probably because I was, and still am, way more invested in Sunny than I’ve ever been in a bunny, and I’m not drinking or boning my way out of my funk.

  “Are you going to stop with the insults and the reality TV show dream so we can talk about real, actual, important things, like this fundraiser? How are we on the finances front?” I pull up the spreadsheet with the figures and itemized lists of things we need to pull this off. If things go well, I’ll have a solid chunk of funds to donate to Michael’s family.

  After I stopped moping, I looked into their situation. It isn’t very good. Neither parent has benefits, so they’re out of pocket for all the medication. Applications for support can take months. It also looks like they’ll have to pull Michael out of hockey because they can’t afford it. Dealing with cancer as a kid is bad enough without losing one of the things that makes life fun.

  “Sidney and I have contacted a bunch of people, and we’ve already secured a few significant donations,” Vi reports. “And you’ve contacted the porno car wash guy, right?”

  “Yup. Gene’s all over donating as long as he can get center-ice seats.”

  “Easy enough.” Vi types frantically on her laptop. “Overhead is covered, apart from a few thousand dollars, so almost everything beyond that will go to Michael’s family. So far it’s looking good. I have a list of volunteers for the day of, and Sidney’s secured an arena, vendors, and security close to Michael so he won’t have to travel. We can start promoting ticket sales as soon as the teams are finalized.”

  “Awesome.” I’m amazed at the number of people required to run this event and how quickly we’ve been able to pull it together. My donation to the car wash fundraiser and my involvement in the camp have gone a long way in helping build positive buzz and to making this whole thing easier. Gene has been a great about sharing information and strategies, and he’s given me some new contacts.

  “I ordered the T-shirts,” she adds.

  “Nice. Wait. What? Why would you do that? I haven’t made a decision about the name yet.”

  “I made it for you.” She taps the space bar on the computer, pretending to do something so she doesn’t have to look at me.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that. Now I’m going to have to look at hundreds of people wearing shirts with Project Sunshine in huge yellow letters.”

  “They’re great shirts.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yeah, but nothing. Sunny needs to see for herself what she let go. Besides, it’s too late to cancel the order for the shirts or the jerseys.” She gives me a big, jerky grin. “Also, Alex is going to the gym this afternoon.”

  “So?”

  “You still need a few more players, right? He’s been asking about it, but it’s not up to me if he can play or not. You might want to clear the air before the season starts so you don’t murder each other on the ice.”

  “We’ve punched each other out; we should be even.” I’d like to punch him again, but I won’t. “I guess it might be a good idea since you’re gonna marry him and all, huh? I’m gonna have to deal with him no matter what.”

  Vi sniffs and wipes away a fake tear. “Look at you, growing up, being the man. I’m so proud.”

  “Suck it.”

  “Alex was unreasonable. We’re mostly okay, but I’m still not happy with how he managed himself. I’ve been doing a lot of withholding. It hasn’t been easy, but I think he’s starting to get it.”

  “Withholding?”

  She gestures to herself. “He gets none of this right now. So I’m responsible for taking care of my own orgasms. It’s seriously fucking inconvenient for me, but I’m willing to take a stand for you, so remember that.”

  I try to speak, but there aren’t any words to express the level of overshare or my gratitude.

  Violet waves a hand around. “Alex hasn’t always done the right thing when it comes to Sunny, and he knows that, even if he won’t ever admit it to you. He also knows how miserable she is right now, and he’s worried. At the end of the day, he wants her to be happy.”

  He can’t be all bad if Vi’s willing to spend the rest of her life with him.

  “I’ll talk to him when I see him.” I don’t want to get into another discussion about calling Sunny, so I change the topic. “How’re the wedding plans coming?”

  Every time I bring this up, Vi has a mini freak-out. It’s fun to watch.

  Her eye twitches, and she rubs her palms on her legs. “Ugh. Seriously. We haven’t been engaged that long. And with all this bullshit going on . . . you’d think we were in a state of emergency or something. Daisy and my mom are psycho about it. They have a running list of, like, two hundred people, and that’s just for the engagement party. I keep telling Alex we need to elope. I can’t deal with a five-hundred-person wedding. We’re not even Italian. It’s craziness.

  “I don’t get the whole need to be a princess for a day. I don’t want to be a princess. I want to be Violet Waters so I have a princessy, romantic name. The rest of it is total crap meant to propagate false expectations for marriage.”

  “Wow. Way to sell it, Vi.”

  “Screw you, Buck. You just wait. Your day will come, and when it does I’ll laugh it up like you are. Talking about this is giving me hives.”

  At first I think she’s being dramatic, but
then I see irregular red dots appear on her arms.

  “Does Waters know you’re this stressed out?”

  “Say one word and I’ll—”

  “Shave my balls. I know.”

  “I was gonna say armpits, but you had to go for the genitalia, didn’t you?”

  “Shouldn’t you be excited and not stressed? Don’t girls love this shit.”

  Violet scratches the angry red welts expanding on her arm and ignores my questions.

  The sound of the patio door opening in the condo next door puts me on alert. A new chick moved in while I was away. I haven’t officially met her, but we’ve chatted, and I’ve met her yappy dog’s nose through the tennis-ball-sized drainage hole where my privacy wall meets hers. The patter of nails on the tile follows, and his little brown nose appears in the hole, then it disappears and his paw shows up. He whines, aware he can’t get to me.

  “Doodle! Stop being a pest!” The woman next door snaps her fingers and calls out, “Hi, neighbor!”

  “Morning.” I call back.

  Vi whispers, “Doodle? She named her dog after a penis?”

  I shake my head and motion for us to go inside. This lady can be chatty for someone I’ve never seen, and for some reason her voice is familiar. We sneak back inside and finish planning the next phase of Project Sunshine. In two days I fly to Toronto to see Michael. We have a promo video to make—it’s been scheduled so it’s before his chemo treatment. Then I’m hanging around for that to keep him company.

  Vi leaves before lunch, and I head to the gym. I staunchly avoid the coed section and the smattering of bunnies hanging around looking to chat. I also note that Randy avoids the bunnies, which is atypical for him. After two hours of hardcore training, I hit the showers.

  Waters is already in there with his back to me. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he broke my nose. Here’s hoping he’s going to be civil about it. I leave a shower between us and turn on the spray, adjusting it until it’s hot enough to relax my tight muscles.

  “Waters.”

  “Butterson.” He glances my way briefly and motions to my face. “Looks like you’re healing up good.”